After trundling along at a decent and more than satisfying pace, ‘He Blinded Me...With Science’ descends into madness half way through, with several plots reaching crucial breaking points, with some resulting in harsh consequences.

The first of these is Drake’s unfortunate run-in with Major, who became the latest chaos killer victim after Blaine lead Major right to Liv’s new beau, thanks to Drake’s inability to keep Blaine safe from Mr Boss. This is a prime examples of how well iZombie’s arcs are coming together lately. Two seemingly disparate stories collided in a way that will have serious repercussions for many of the different plots that are cooking right now. Drake’s disappearance will no doubt cause even more pain for Liv in light of her discovery that he’s been working for Mr Boss. Sadly, she’s unaware that he’s been doing this as part of an undercover operation, and is in actual fact a good guy. When will she find out who he really is?

The rest of the twists came courtesy of Max Rager’s secret experiments, which Liv inadvertently found herself tangled up in here, after an investigation into a research scientist’s death lead her into the belly of the beast. I dug Liv’s undercover disguise, which was more Rose McIver than we’re used to with iZombie. I kind of wish it lasted longer than it did. She was only just in the door before she got caught by Gilda, whom Liv has only half exposed. I was expecting a dramatic office confrontation between them this week but it never happened. So Liv still only knows that Gilda slept with Major, not that she was a mole for one of the many Big Bads in her life. Not that it mattered, since plenty happened regardless, but I’m surprised this particular plot has lasted as long as it did, considering how quickly everything has progressed elsewhere.

It’s easy to get that Liv’s failed sleuthing attempts weren’t the point, here. Neither was the truth behind the scientist’s death. ‘He Blinded Me...” was about getting Liv closer to the truth about Max Rager and jolting their research forward to an inevitably brutal result, with our first casualties of that ill-conceived research: Gilda and the lab tech (who may as well have been named cannon fodder). Vaughn really should have seen this coming, but he was so blinded with the power he had created he didn’t see that it was a disaster waiting to happen. Even now I think he’s still blind to what he’s done. He didn’t help Gilda when she got caught in the lab with the manic zombie, and he didn’t even show her a helping hand when she returned from her encounter covered in scratches. It’s nearly impossible to tell what his next move will be after all of this, but I get the feeling he may still push ahead with his plans. He’s too single minded to stop at this point.

Major will have to step up to help Liv fill in the missing pieces if they’re ever going to have a shot at stopping the release of Super Max. Thanks to what she learned this week, Liv is getting very close to the truth; she just needs a little extra help. What she can do when she does know everything is anyone’s guess, but I’d just like to see her get there, and soon. Major is starting to stand up to Vaughn, but he’s still under his thumb and burning through his zombie list. That freezer must be overflowing by now. Now is his opportunity to be the good guy he was before.

Plus

So many Blaine gags in this one. My favorite was when he burst into the morgue yelling “Brains”. His English countryman impression (whilst sporting some standard Ravi attire) was a close second.

The cure is still eluding poor Ravi, who’s been working tirelessly to engineer one.

Clive and Bozzio found out that the brains they found in the cabin in the previous episode were human, as well as the brains they discovered a few episodes before that. It’s going to be very entertaining to see what happens when Clive gets seriously mixed up in all the zombie fun.

He Said, She Said

Liv: “Vaughn Du Clark: that man is pure evil. I know that at my very core.”
Ravi: “Rationalization isn't just a river in Egypt. No. No, wait, that's denial. Never mind. You should be good.”

Vaughn: “Businesses compete by trying to come up with even cooler new things, and you don't want someone trying to copy your cooler new thing before you're done, do you? So you work on it in your secret basement. I mean, Fisher-Price probably has a secret basement, for God's sake.”

As viewers we’ve seen so much developing in all of the different corners of the iZombie universe, and we’ve had a lot of fun along the way. It’s time to get the characters themselves up to speed on all that so we can have even more fun. With Liv finally tearing the seams apart on one major villain’s operation, and Clive discovering human brains during his investigation into the chaos killer’s victims, it looks like that is exactly what’s about to happen. All hands on deck for a wild ride to the finish line. Just four episodes left!

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I'm loving izombie atm, and thanks so much for the reviews!!

The only thing I really don't understand is whether utopium or max rager caused the zombie outbreak...? does this make sense, and I just don't get it/missed it, or is this a mistake (which would still not detract from the fun)? Does anyone know..?:) helen

helen:Assuming I recall correctly...Ravi showed, via his rat experiments, that Max Rager and tainted utopium need to be consumed together to make a zombie "from scratch". Max Rager is using zombies to test their new SuperMaxx formula, but they can only make zombies from other zombies because they don't know about the tainted utopium connection. Vaughn learned about zombies from investigating Liv, which started because of Liv's interest in Max Rager, which was because of Ravi's demonstration. Vaughn's interest in eliminating zombies is purely PR, because he knows the formula is involved somehow (from his spying on Liv) and if a zombie outbreak never happens, then that knowledge never comes out to damage his rep.

As to why Vaughn is using zombies to test SuperMaxx..., maybe because he can since there's no need to worry about ethical testing of a "monster"?

My only complaint with iZombie forever remains: I NEED MORE RAVI. He deserves an episode centered around him. Or at least more involvement in the current overlapping plots, other than being Liv's sidekick and dropping the necessary quips. He's a normal guy caught up in this whole zombie mess, his POV episode would be interesting, and i LOVE LOVE LOVE him.